Onerous debt making poorest countries poorer
31/1/2024: Recent modest progress in reducing extreme poverty and food insecurity has slowed sharply, or even reversed in many of the world’s poorest countries. As a debt crisis looms, much more concessional finance and other resources are needed for these countries to develop.
Source: Inter Press Service
Saudi Arabia must abide by UN Human Rights Council review
30/1/2024: Amnesty has called on Saudi Arabia to act on the UN's latest Universal Periodic Review of human rights which contains 354 recommendations including eliminating all forms of discrimination against women. Since its last review in 2018, Saudi Arabia has failed to implement many of the recommendations it had supported at the time.
Source: Amnesty International
Myanmar’s military abuses against civilians intensify
30/1/2024: Governments that provide arms or materiel to the military junta in Myanmar risk being complicit in war crimes, according to Human Rights Watch. The campaign group says that sanctions have been inconsistent and that governments in the region have turned a blind eye to the junta's rights violations.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Mali’s peace deal ends
26/1/2024: In recent months there has been a surge in attacks by armed Islamist groups across Mali. Meanwhile, UN peacekeepers, deployed since 2013, are withdrawing at the request of the junta. With the end of a 2015 peace agreement, the threat to civilians across Mali remains grave.
Source: Human Rights Watch
The ICJ ruling is a repudiation of Israel and its western backers
26/1/2024: Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, observes that enormous damage to the ‘rules-based order’ will be done if the US and UK fail to call on Israel to comply with the order of the International Court of Justice.
Source: The Guardian
UN world court calls for prevention of genocidal acts in Gaza
26/1/2024: The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel should prevent acts of genocide and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The UN Secretary-General has called on all parties to comply with the Court order.
Source: UN News
China set to dodge accountability at UN human rights review
24/1/2024: The UN Human Rights Council is about to begin the process of China’s Fourth Cycle Universal Periodic Review, amid a deeply hostile environment for minorities in China and an increasingly desperate Hong Kong population. The Chinese government has already expressed its resistance to the concept of universality, preferring a ‘Chinese path of human rights development.'
Source: East Asia Forum
Africa’s life-sustaining water towers have been overlooked
24/1/2024: African countries have lacked resources to monitor the continent's critical water systems and the wide-ranging impacts on them from pollution, climate change, and increasing demand. Global research on water scarcity tends to focus on the presence of snow and ice to identify water towers, thereby omitting Africa.
Source: African Arguments
India: Is poverty really decreasing?
23/1/2024: India claims that almost 250 million people have been lifted out of multidimensional poverty in the past nine years, according to a report by a government think tank.. However, experts have raised doubts about a lack of relevant data.
Source: DW
Concept of planetary boundaries modified for environmental justice
23/1/2024: The team that developed the planetary boundaries framework has merged the concept with social thresholds of tolerance, recognised in doughnut economics and the Sustainable Development Goals. The modified approach has been published in a scientific paper.
Source: Third World Network